In Nation Plagued by Abductions, Search Is On

Kidnappings have plagued Venezuela in recent years and at times have directly affected major league baseball players. Several of them have had family members taken away at gunpoint and held for ransom.

But for what is believed to be the first time, a major league player has been abducted there. On Wednesday, Wilson Ramos, a promising catcher for the Washington Nationals, was taken by several men outside his parents’ house east of Valencia, a city of more than two million people that is the third largest in Venezuela.

The Washington Post reported that a Venezuelan police Twitter feed said Ramos was alive.

Ramos, 24, was a highly regarded prospect as he worked his way through the Minnesota Twins’ organization. He was traded in July 2010 to the Nationals in exchange for closer Matt Capps.

In 2011, his first full season in the majors, he played in 113 games for Washington and had 15 home runs, 52 runs batted in and a .267 batting average, solid numbers for a player trying to establish himself in the majors.

Major League Baseball’s department of investigations is taking part in the efforts to free Ramos and has several investigators in Venezuela working with the authorities there.

Although Ramos is not a United States citizen, the State Department weighed in Thursday afternoon, with the spokesman Mark Toner saying in the daily press briefing that the kidnapping was a “big concern for us.”

Venezuela is struggling with one of the world’s highest kidnapping rates. The National Statistics Institute estimated there were 17,000 kidnappings in Venezuela from July 2008 to July 2009.

Photo

The Nationals' Wilson Ramos.Credit
Paul Connors/Associated Press

A large majority of abductions are so-called express kidnappings, in which victims are released within a day. But other cases, as Ramos’s abduction appears to be, are more elaborately planned by criminal gangs, which operate with a large degree of impunity in Venezuela.

Although Venezuela’s diplomatic ties with the United States have soured, the countries maintain a strong baseball relationship, with American players and managers hired by Venezuelan teams and Venezuelans emerging as a top source of talent for the major leagues.

Some relatives of professional Venezuelan players have been kidnapped. The 56-year-old mother of Victor Zambrano, a former pitcher for the Mets, was rescued in 2009 after a three-day abduction in Araguas.

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The 11-year-old son of Yorvit Torrealba, a catcher for the Texas Rangers, was abducted on the outskirts of Caracas the same year, along with two of the boy’s uncles. They emerged unharmed. The brother of Henry Blanco, a catcher for the Diamondbacks, was fatally shot in 2008 after being kidnapped near Caracas. The mother of the former pitcher Ugueth Urbina spent more than five months in captivity before being rescued in early 2005.

Kathe Vilera, a spokeswoman for Ramos’s Venezuelan winter team, the Aragua Tigers, said Thursday in a message on Twitter that Ramos’s family had not been contacted by his abductors. “We’re still praying,” she said.

Law enforcement officials in Venezuela said the sports utility vehicle used in Ramos’s abduction was recovered Thursday morning. The officials said that its discovery helped their investigation and that they had their “best specialists” on the case.

Ramos had returned to Venezuela at least in part so he could take play winter-league baseball.

The Associated Press reported that at games in three Venezuelan stadiums, fans and players observed a minute of silence Thursday night in support of Ramos, and prayed for him. Julio Franco, a Dominican and former major leaguer who manages the Caribes, grabbed a microphone and spoke to fans at a game in Puerto La Cruz. “Jesus, we ask you for your grace and divine power to protect our brother, Wilson Ramos,” he said.

How much help baseball’s investigators may provide is unclear. Baseball’s department of investigations was created after the Mitchell report on performance-enhancing drugs was released in 2007. Since then, the department’s responsibilities have expanded. The investigators have worked in Latin America to combat identity fraud by players and bonus skimming by scouts.

The department has worked to establish closer ties with law-enforcement officials in the United States and Latin America, although it is unclear how receptive the Venezuelan government has been to its overtures.

María Eugenia Díaz contributed reporting from Caracas, Venezuela.

A version of this article appears in print on November 11, 2011, on Page B15 of the New York edition with the headline: After Abduction, a Search in Venezuela. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe